


Bedtime Story

by dixiehellcat



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Helicarrier (Marvel), Insomniac Tony Stark, Nick Fury is a Good Bro, Reading Aloud, The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, mention of children in abusive situations, mention of past dysfunctional childhoods, well insomniac Avengers actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22730827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: The Avengers are stressed after a disturbing mission, especially Tony. Steve turns to Fury for help, and the SHIELD director has a unique idea.Fill for Tony Stark Bingo 2020, card 3028, square S2 'old team', spring 2020
Relationships: Nick Fury & Avengers Team
Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765129
Comments: 24
Kudos: 56
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo, Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	Bedtime Story

**Author's Note:**

> Teen rating for, ahem, language. lol

For a mission that had ended quickly, well, and with minimal bloodshed, Steve thought as he walked down the passageway of the SHIELD helicarrier, the aftermath of this one sure was weird. 

An anonymous tip had sent the Avengers in pursuit of a HYDRA splinter cell that had somehow gotten its mitts on the scepter taken from Loki after his Chitauri army was repelled. Their worst fears had been realized when they tracked the new-wave Nazis down—not only were the criminals experimenting with the capacities of the scepter, they were doing it on children, abducted from the countryside around the remote hidey-hole in northern Africa. The villains had escaped with the scepter a jump ahead of the Avengers, leaving the children behind. 

The kids…were not in good shape. Some of them were hysterical, some seemed dazed, and some refused to speak or move on their own. It tore at Steve’s heart to leave them, even though the aid organization SHIELD had called in assured him the children would be well cared for, receive the care they needed, and hopefully be reunited with their parents.

That was good, but the impact on the Avengers themselves had been profound. A helicarrier had followed them at a distance for backup, a good thing when a leftover mine blew out two of the quinjet’s engines as they were taking off. The instant they limped to a touchdown on its deck, Natasha and Clint had vanished. Hours later, Steve had tracked them down in a gym, beating each other and every piece of equipment. Not like he didn’t understand—he had the urge to do the same. Bruce had Hulked out and reduced the HYDRA hideout to splinters once every child was safely removed, and then Thor had burned the splinters to a crisp.

The only member of the team who had initially seemed unaffected was Tony. He had hopped out of the jet, led the way to one of the crew quarters, called dibs on a shower, then trotted off about whatever business a genius billionaire inventor had on SHIELD’s biggest asset. Steve had shrugged and done the same. That was five days ago, though. The helicarrier had been called in urgently for reconnaissance over another country, then as backup to extract some agents from still another (Steve couldn’t remember the names; so many little countries had sprouted, died, and reinvented themselves since his day) and with their bird lame, the Avengers had been hauled along for the ride. Five days, going on six, and Tony might have slept but it definitely wasn’t in the bunk he had been assigned.

His behavior had gotten more erratic over the course of the expedition too. Maria Hill was beside herself; when he wasn’t working on the quinjet or his nearly-wrecked Iron Man suit (the reason he was stuck there with the rest of them) she couldn’t get him away from monkeying with the engines, the flight deck, even Fury’s computer screens. She huffed that she had threatened to strap him down, and only gotten a reckless grin and a warning that if she did that without Pepper around, she was likely to meet the business end of a stiletto pump wielded by a jealous CEO.

“Maybe he’s worried about Pepper?” Steve had suggested when he finally called the rest of the team (except Thor, who had taken off for Asgard) together to discuss the matter. Turned out, some of them had noticed the same things he had, and probed for causes.

“I asked him about that,” Natasha said. “He laughed and said if he was honest, Pepper was probably happy to have him out from underfoot for a while.”

Steve made a face. He had apologized to Tony for his insults when they’d first met, and been assured all was copacetic, but the longer they had worked together, the more obvious it had become that Tony was more insulting of himself than anybody else could have been.

“He’s guzzling coffee by the gallon,” Bruce said with a worried frown. “I’d say he needed a caffeine detox, if it was anybody but Tony. And I’m not exaggerating about the volume. We were sitting in the mess hall yesterday and I counted the cups, then did the measurements after he left. It was a gallon, no lie.”

Steve sighed. “He can act goofy sometimes, but this is way out there even for him. Anybody got ideas what’s eating him?”

They sat around on their bunks in silence for a moment, before Bruce offered hesitantly, “I don’t know that this has any bearing, but the mess hall was pretty crowded, what with that brigade of agents we picked up in Qatar. Some of them asked to sit at the table Tony and I were using. We said sure, they started talking, pulling their phones out, sharing pictures of their kids and what have you, and he jumped up and was gone.” Bruce snapped his fingers to illustrate. “Just like that.”

“The kids.” Clint had sat and listened quietly but now spoke up. “Tony and I were together when we found that one room in HYDRA’s lair, where the kids were cuffed to chairs sitting in their own…you know. His face—he could’ve thrown up, or cried, or—I dunno. But he blasted the fuck out of the place. And Bruce, you said he bailed when the agents started talking about kids. Maybe that’s it.”

Steve pondered. “Never imagined Stark as having much of a soft spot for kids.”

“He was a kid,” Natasha pointed out. “And from the research I’ve done, his childhood wasn’t the best. Sorry, Steve, I know you and Howard were pals, but—”

“No, it’s okay, Widow. I couldn’t see Howard as an A-plus dad either, sad to admit.” Steve stretched a little; he hadn’t slept well since the mission either, though at least he was making an attempt. He looked around at his team, noticing the weariness in every face, and wondered who he might ask for advice; then he got an idea. As they scattered across the massive craft again, he went looking for Nick Fury.

Fury, as ever, was keeping his one eye sharply on his people’s work, but when Steve approached and asked for a moment, he stepped aside. He listened intently as Steve explained the situation. “So, what did you have in mind that I could do to help, Captain Rogers? Knock Stark upside the head with a rubber mallet, slip a mickey into his java?”

“I don’t know!” Steve burst out, then caught himself. “Sorry. We’re all more affected by this mission than we thought, I guess. No sense in taking it out on you though, Nick. I just wanted somebody else to be a sounding board.”

“No offense taken, Cap.” Fury got a thoughtful glint in his eye. “I may have an idea. See if you can round up your flock in six hours or so, including Stark. I’ll meet you in your quarters.”

Steve passed the word around, and personally hauled Tony, grease-smudged and barely conscious, out of an engine bay and back to the group berth. Fury breezed in, a thin book under one arm. “So I hear you’re dead on your feet, Mr. Stark. Care to share with the class?”

“Nope,” Tony fired back, his usual snark diluted by a barely smothered yawn. “No problems here, where’d you hear such slander?”

“Your teammates are concerned about you.” The tone of Fury’s response was anything but scolding, but Tony almost flinched, and peered around the room at the other Avengers. 

“I—you’ve all been getting your eight hours, or whatever you want, right? I’ve steered clear so I wouldn’t wake anybody up with my own neuroses.”

“It’s been a week, Tony,” Bruce said gently. “Have you slept at all?” 

To Tony’s diffident shrug, Steve sat down on the bunk beside him and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t apologize. If it’s the mission that’s under your skin, you aren’t alone, if that makes you feel any better. We’re all human, even if some of us got an extra shot of juice. We have feelings. You have feelings.”

The shake of Tony’s head would have been vehement if he hadn’t almost tipped over onto his pillow. “No feelings. I’m allergic to ‘em.”

Fury snorted. “I have to check in with the duty officer. I’ll be back in, let’s say twenty minutes. I expect all of you to have whatever your pre-bedtime routines are completed, and be in here pajama’ed and ready to be read to.”

He tapped the book under his arm, then left with the usual dramatic swish of his long coat. Bruce scratched his head. “Did…he just say be ready to be _read to_?”

“Yep,” Clint said. He started to stand up, but in a flash Tony was up and in the bathroom with the door slamming behind him. “What the fuck, Stark? I gotta brush my teeth. This SHIELD corned beef sticks like epoxy if ya don’t take a weapon to it.”

“Think he’ll come out?” Nat asked Steve.

Tony did come out, but it was nearly fifteen minutes later. The motor grease was washed away, and he actually was wearing a clean tank top and baggy khakis (none of them had thought to pack a bag for a week’s involuntary vacation when they left Stark Tower on a mission supposed to take a day, so SHIELD-issue gear it was). Clint swore under his breath and shoved past Tony to get to his toothbrush. For his part, Tony shuffled across the room to settle on his bunk again, next to Steve who was still sitting there. “You guys are actually so damn weird, you called Fury to come and tuck me in?” 

It was probably meant to be indignant, but fatigue clearly weighed so heavy on him, it came out in more of a dumbfounded tone. “Blame Steve,” Bruce said with a rare smart-ass grin.

Steve spread his hands. “Didn’t know what else to do,” he admitted. Tony glared, or tried to, but all he could manage was a bleary squint.

Natasha dashed into the bathroom as Clint emerged in his boxers and t-shirt. Steve and a slightly abashed-looking Bruce stripped down too. “So this slumber party is happening,” Tony shook his head in wonder.

“I was never treated as a child, really, in any way,” Natasha replied as she emerged from the bathroom, dressed similarly to Tony, but filling the clothes out very differently. “Perhaps our trainer would read us mission reports at night? Anyway, this sounds intriguing.”

“Could be fun,” Bruce admitted, his ears flushing pink. “I, um, never got read to as a kid either. Better late than never, huh?”

“Same,” Clint agreed, scaling to a top bunk and flopping onto his back.

Silently stunned, Steve was almost embarrassed to confess, “My mom read to me a lot. I liked stories but I was too tired and sick to even hold the book up sometimes. Adventure stories, or stories from her old family Bible.”

“You’ve got a leg up on all of us then, Capsicle,” Tony said, clearly making an effort to regain his typical brisk manner. “Once in a blue moon, aunt Peg would read to me, when she and Jarvis could slip it past Howard. He figured anything beyond science and building specs was a waste of my brain cells, I guess.”

“And Peg told him where he could shove those specs,” Fury added, re-entering the quarters. “You never saw her when she’d talk about the times she spent with her little godson and a good book. Got her all soft and squishy, in a way we hardly ever saw her. You were partial to stories about King Arthur and the Round Table. I think that pleased her English. And I remember once she told us she read you a biography of Harry Houdini, and you decided you were going to become the world’s next great escape artist.”

Bruce leaned over and poked his science bro. “You kinda came through on that score.”

“I had no idea you were so familiar with Peggy and Howard,” Steve said to Fury. “Makes sense, though, considering SHIELD.”

Tony fidgeted, fingers tapping on the arc reactor. “Um, thanks for the thought, Mad-Eye, but don’t you have real work to do? No point in you babysitting a maladjusted superhero and keeping the team up—”

“Shut up, Stark, quit trying to talk him out of it!” Clint groaned and rolled to his side.

“We want to hear the story too.” Nimble as a tree-dweller, Natasha hopped into another upper bunk and settled cross-legged, gazing expectantly down at Fury.

“Yeah, unless this is some trick to make us listen to a policy manual,” Bruce surprised them all by snarking off.

“No!” Steve yelped in horror, and they all laughed. Even Fury conceded a little smile, and dragged a chair from near the door to sit in the middle of the room. With a theatrical flourish, he opened the book and began to read. 

“The cats nestle close to their kittens, the lambs have laid down with the sheep. You are cozy and warm in your beds, my dears. Please go the fuck to sleep.”

Tony let out a stifled cackle. Steve blinked and asked, “Is this usual children’s fare, nowadays?” Clint shushed him. Bruce’s eyes were huge. From her perch, Natasha smirked.

“The windows are dark in the town, children. The whales huddle down in the deep. I'll read you one very last book if you swear that you'll go the fuck to sleep.”

The poetry grew more profane by the page. Steve was no prude, but really, this couldn’t be meant for kids, right? It didn’t seem to faze any of the other Avengers; Bruce was laughing harder than anybody had ever seen. Clint shouted at one verse and nearly rolled bodily off his bunk. Natasha giggled out loud, which was terrifying. And Tony held his stomach and howled until literal tears came to his eyes.

Unperturbed, Fury continued in a perfectly calm voice, seemingly unruffled by the havoc he was wreaking, and Steve found himself snickering at the sing-song rhymes’ depiction of a frustrated parent. The absurdity of it all finally sank in, and at the same time, so did the purpose: as the laughter faded, so too did the tension. Natasha stretched out with a sigh, and Clint was already softly snoring, by the time the tale ended with the hapless parent braced for another round. “That was great, Fury,” Bruce said quietly. “Thanks.”

Warm pressure against Steve’s side drew his attention before he could add his appreciation. Glancing over, he found Tony’s head lying on his shoulder, eyes closed. With as much care as defusing a bomb, he eased the other man to lie down and pulled a blanket over him. _Night_ , Steve mouthed. Fury just smiled, gave a slight nod, and slipped out. Feeling more relaxed than he had since the start of the mission, or really before that, Steve switched off the light and padded off to bed, his way illuminated by the faint blue glow from Tony's berth.

**Author's Note:**

> hee. Yes, I know it's been done before; no, I could not resist. Set between Avengers 1 and TWS. IM3 either didn't happen in this verse, hasn't happened yet, or went differently; either way, Tony still has the arc reactor.
> 
> For the full version, https://genius.com/Adam-mansbach-go-the-fuck-to-sleep-annotated
> 
> But of course, you're going to want to hear Fury reading it, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udj-o2m39NA


End file.
